Black History Month Archives

Tara Stafford: Project Manager, PGIM Operations & Innovation

Black History Month, Movers and Shakers, People

“Don’t be afraid to be authentically you,” says Tara Stafford, Project Manager, Operations & Innovation at PGIM. “If you can do that, you’ll be surprised how your contributions can positively impact the business, those around you – and beyond.”

Making a Positive Impact – Both Personally and Professionally

Being “authentically you” at work wasn’t easy for Stafford early in her career. After graduating from Montclair State University with a degree in Business Management and Marketing, Stafford landed at the investment and wealth management firm, Merrill Lynch, as the only Black woman on her team.

“Coming into the financial services industry as a Black woman, I didn’t always have the courage and confidence to be myself because I didn’t see a lot of women in senior leadership positions that looked like me in the industry,” Stafford says.

Tara’s authenticity is most evident when she is serving others in her community. Over the last two decades, she has volunteered as a Girl Scout troop leader to high school girls and is a back-up foster parent to two children on the autism spectrum. Her parents, both educators, instilled the responsibility to serve the community and make a positive impact in it.

Tara worked hard and rose through the ranks over 12 years at Merrill—becoming a Six Sigma Blackbelt and assistant vice president in the Global Transaction division, before leaving to join PGIM’s Risk Management team. She enjoyed her regulatory oversight position, but that feeling she could do more – be more – at work wouldn’t go away.

Then, Stafford learned about an opportunity on PGIM’s Operations & Innovation’s Business & Talent Management team where there is a strong focus on including recruiting, training, employee engagement and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. She has made impactful contributions and helped launch and lead PGIM’s Neurodiversity Program, which is focused on establishing a more inclusive talent process – from recruiting, to interviewing, to training and retention, recognizing the skills of those who are neurodivergent. The program also has an education component, teaching managers and employees how to best recruit, work with neurodiverse talent and become better leaders. Stafford feels this role in project management is a natural extension of her passion and values.

According to Employee Benefits News, 85% of autistic adults with a college education are unemployed. “I had an idea of what this untapped population needs were and how to best support and showcase their many talents,” Stafford says. She took on the role and jumped right in, onboarding the first six neurodiverse cohort members last year. Four of the six earned full-time roles within PGIM, and another cohort is currently going through the program.

Stafford credits three important attributes she honed through years of volunteerism and foster parenting with helping her make the program a success: empathy, commitment and patience.

“People connect with you more and receive more from you when you are open and honest,” Stafford says. She believes that an effective leader is someone willing to learn from others, open to receiving “reverse” mentorship and is dedicated to helping others grow and thrive.

“Make sure you share your knowledge. It’s very important for people to understand that we’re not competing with each other; we’re helping each other.”

Finding Mentors and Sponsorship Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Stafford has a unique perspective on the values of mentorship and sponsorship.

“Growth among peers is not a competition, and everyone’s growth path is different. Putting egos aside and collectively pooling our talent and expertise helps ensure that our business’ goals are prioritized, enabling everyone to ultimately be successful,” she says. “At the end of the day, if support and resources I’ve provided can help develop and lift someone else as I climb the corporate ladder, no matter what level they are, I’ve done my job – and I’ve done it well.”

While she wishes she could have had more mentors with a similar background, Stafford says she learned over the years how important it is to find a mentor or sponsor who has different viewpoints.

She explains, “For me, having a white male mentor is just as important as having a mentor who is a Black woman. Your allies can share a different perspective and teach you new things. It’s very important to have mentors and allies from all different backgrounds and walks of life.”

Stafford also believes there’s value in finding a mentor organically—even if it means going outside of your comfort zone to approach someone for career advice or to learn more about their professional experience. “All relationships need to start somewhere, and in reaching out, you’re showing that you fully own your career.” she says.

“It’s also important that you’re giving just as much as you’re receiving in a mentoring relationship, so be prepared and think strategically about who you want to mentor you… especially since mentors can turn into your sponsors – the people who are champions in your corner and advocate for you at the tables where you don’t have a seat.”

Being the Change She Wants to See in the World

As if it weren’t enough to make a positive impact on her colleagues, Girl Scout troops and foster children’s lives, Stafford wanted to make an even bigger difference in her community, choosing to run for her local school board in 2019. Although she didn’t win, she gained valuable knowledge from the experience.

“I learned how tenacious and resilient I really am, and that experience strengthened my connection to my community and broadened my support network,” Stafford says.

When asked what keeps her going when faced with challenges, she emphasizes her passion for change and her commitment to working hard for the things she values. That, she says, is what is most “authentically me.”

“Your values speak to what you will work hard for. Ultimately, what drives me when it comes to making change and serving as a role model is, ‘If not me, then who?’”

February 22, 2024/by Aimee

Kimberly Bryant: Founder and CEO, Black Innovation Lab and Ascend Ventures Tech

Black History Month, Intrepid Women Series, People, Voices of Experience

“We got to survive to run the race. So, it is very important that we find mechanisms, and we create support systems to save ourselves along this path.”

Kimberly Bryant is the founder and CEO of the Black Innovation Lab and Ascend Ventures Tech. A little over ten years ago, Bryant wanted to see more black and brown girls in computer science, which led to her creating Black Girls CODE to support her young daughter’s interest in coding. Now, she is working on her next set of passion projects; an early startup accelerator to nurture founders in the US South called the Black Innovation Lab in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee; and a book and advocacy work to support Black women leaders in both the nonprofit and for-profit business space.

“What I wanted to do as a part of the Black Innovation Lab is take all of the knowledge and networks I’ve acquired over the last almost 20 years in the heart and center of innovation back to my hometown to create a space to support founders that come from communities that look like me, and have had challenges, and to show what the pitfalls may be, so they do not repeat some of the mistakes that I made within my career as a leader. It’s to create a solution to finding support and finding supportive spaces where we can thrive as well as maintain that which we create. I really feel that my experiences and my founder journey brought me to this moment, where I can be a mentor, a supporter and advisor to others like me. There has been a recurring theme of mentorship throughout my career both within my previous nonprofit work with Black Girls CODE, and also as a foundation for my work within the Black Innovation Lab and the advocacy work I’ve been doing with other Black women leaders.”

Bryant cites the ‘Black GirlBoss Paradox’ as a crucial phenomenon she has been exploring within her advocacy work alongside other Black women leaders and as part of the OpEd and Equality Now’s Public Voices Fellowship On Advancing The Rights Of Women And Girls. Her efforts to address the ‘Black GirlBoss Paradox’ are focused throughout her written work, research, and the foundation of a future advocacy organization. While distinct from the Black Innovation Lab, these endeavors complement and align with its central themes of equity, inclusion, and empowerment, collectively working toward a more equitable and supportive landscape for marginalized founders and leaders. She describes the ‘Black GirlBoss Paradox’ as the situation when, “black women ascend to a certain level in leadership and they find many obstacles, and many biases around our ability to lead and hold power in current infrastructures.”

Bryant continues, “when I experienced challenges within my leadership journey I was surprised by the number of other Black women who reached out to me publicly and privately to share their similar experiences. I believe we have a crisis with respect to Black female leadership and need transformative change to the nonprofit and for-profit systems which have been a barrier to our ability to thrive and grow in these spaces”.

Bryant is a trailblazer, altruistic and focused on real change. She hopes that future generations of women leaders will be given the opportunity to have safe learning experiences. She recognizes that systemic change may not happen overnight, but as more support is built through organizations and we speak truth to the gendered and racialized biases which exist in our systems today, there will be change over time.

“I want something different for the next generation. Where they are actually given just as much opportunity and chances as their male peers and there is true equity of opportunity in the world to both succeed, fail, and get back up and try again.”

The Significance of Black Innovation Lab – A Continuation of a Legacy

Bryant speaks more about her current project, the Black Innovation Lab, and her hopes for how it will support and empower marginalized entrepreneurs. In Bryant’s words: “I wasn’t looking to come home to build a startup accelerator as much as I was looking for ways to support and nurture other founders and creators such as myself and I wanted to do more than just give advice; I wanted to be able to write a check. There is no lack of talent in the startup economy–however what is not equitable is the access to opportunities and I hope to plant seeds to address this gap with a focus on the US South.”

Kimberly Bryant’s journey as the founder and CEO of the Black Innovation Lab is deeply intertwined with her legacy of community work, particularly her role as the visionary behind Black Girls CODE. Over a decade ago, Bryant’s mission was to create pathways for black and brown girls to excel in computer science. Today, that mission continues to evolve, expanding into the creation of the Black Innovation Lab—a natural extension of Bryant’s dedication to community empowerment. This new venture isn’t just a departure for Bryant; it’s a growth and a commitment to providing resources, mentorship, and opportunities to underrepresented tech founders who often face systemic barriers.

Memphis, nestled in the heart of the US South, is the perfect canvas for this venture. The region is teeming with untapped potential and burgeoning talent waiting to be nurtured. By establishing the Black Innovation Lab in Memphis, Bryant is sowing the seeds for a vibrant startup ecosystem to flourish in the South.

For Bryant, it’s a heartfelt homecoming—a return to the city that raised her. Memphis is where her journey began, and it’s where she now intends to make an indelible mark. As the Lab takes root on the historic grounds of the former HBCU Griggs College, she hopes it will serve as a reminder that innovation knows no boundaries. It signifies a full circle moment—an opportunity to bring transformative change back to the place that helped shape her.

Making Space to Learn from Mistakes

Learning from mistakes can be an invaluable experience for leadership growth, if only given the space to make them and bounce back. Bryant points out, however, that women are not given that grace to the same amount as their male peers.

“Women in leadership, and Black women in particular, are seldom afforded the space to acknowledge and recover from their missteps. While we, as leaders, can grow from our errors and find the resilience to get back on course, there exists a pervasive expectation of perfection that disproportionately affects us. It’s a notion we must challenge because male leaders routinely receive second chances, and organizations often cushion their landings. This safety net is seldom extended to women in leadership roles, forcing us to fight tenaciously to reclaim our positions.”

One valuable lesson Kimberly Bryant gleaned from her own journey was the profound importance of trusting her instincts when making pivotal decisions. She reflects, “Far too often, I allowed my rational mind to undermine the decisions I needed to make. Our intuition and the insights we derive internally from these signals hold tremendous power. We mustn’t allow our logical minds to dissuade us from the choices we should pursue. There’s a popular business adage, ‘trust but verify,’ but I propose a modification: ‘verify first, then establish trust.’ If something or someone feels amiss, it’s crucial to trust your instincts and exercise caution.”

Making Space for Serendipity

Bryant reflects on what it means to be a trailblazer and the importance of taking care of oneself as an innovative leader, particularly as a woman of color.

“You absolutely can be what you don’t see in the world because that is what innovators do. So, if you transfer innovators with trail blazers, that’s what trailblazers do — they see a need in the world, and they find a way to fill it. And I think that the need for each of us that are called trailblazers is unique.”

As a trailblazer and founder, Kimberly Bryant recognizes that, “the endurance piece of being a leader and being able to get to that end goal and not have lost all of yourself, is extremely important.”

In that vein, she rejects the trope of the “strong woman”, as she says, “that needs to be put away in the filing cabinet and not used as a badge of honor because I think it’s important for us to realize that the body keeps the score. The position to ‘warrior’ through some challenging times, it catches up with you, and it catches up with the body.” She hopes to set a different pace in this next part of the road in her career and make time for creativity and space for serendipity.

One of the passions that Bryant has in mind when she talks about making space for serendipity is gardening. She describes gardening as “”a means to re-engage with the natural world, to immerse oneself in the process of nurturing life. It’s about celebrating successes and learning from failures, all while maintaining a profound connection with the earth. My garden is more than just soil and plants; it’s my sanctuary—a place of both respite and revival. Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that tending to my garden has been a source of profound healing and renewal, a lifeline that has helped me navigate life’s ups and downs.”

It seems a fitting hobby for Bryant who has dedicated her career to growing as a leader and nurturing others along the way.

February 15, 2024/by Aimee

Empowering Black Female Professionals: Navigating Career Advancement and Corporate Support

Black History Month, Career Advice

In today’s corporate landscape, diversity and inclusion initiatives have gained significant momentum, yet the journey for Black female professionals remains a unique and often challenging one. Everyone is an individual coming to work from different places and backgrounds and it is true that personality traits and opportunities from a young age makes a difference. I speak as someone who lives in a town with many successful Black professionals, and I have a daughter of color myself so I would only want a fair opportunity for her by equipping her for the world and the workplace. Writing this, however, feels somehow repetitive as founder of theglasshammer.com because things only change if we make them change.

People of color are still facing systemic barriers and yet Black female professionals continue to show up to bring invaluable perspectives, skills, and talents to the table. However, to fully harness their potential, it’s crucial to address the obstacles they encounter and recognize the pivotal role that both managers and companies play in their career advancement. It is worth checking out our extensive past coverage on Black women’s advancement and how the Black feminist movement was completely different to the names that we might associate with the topic – bell hooks is less of a household name for example.

Black women in corporate settings often encounter a multitude of challenges that can impede their career progression. These challenges include systemic racism, gender biases, and intersectional discrimination. Tsedale M. Melaku’s book You Don’t Look Like a Lawyer: Black Women and Systemic Gendered Racisim highlights how race and gender create barriers to recruitment, professional development, and advancement to partnership for Black women in elite corporate law firms.

Stereotypes and unconscious biases may lead to being overlooked for promotions or opportunities for growth. Additionally, navigating corporate culture that may not fully embrace diversity and inclusion can be isolating and exhausting with a researched psychological toll of being one of the only senior women of color.

Despite these challenges, there are several strategies Black female professionals can employ to advance in their careers:

Building a strong network is crucial. Cultivating a supportive network of mentors, sponsors, and peers can provide valuable guidance, opportunities, and advocacy. Seeking out individuals who can offer mentorship and sponsorship can help navigate challenges and open doors to new opportunities. Goldman Sachs has a Black Analyst and Associate program that enables connection and learning and has proven to retain and help develop Black and African American talent. Investing in continuous learning and skill development is essential for staying competitive in today’s rapidly evolving workplace. Pursuing professional development opportunities, acquiring new skills, and seeking feedback can enhance capabilities and increase visibility within the organization.

Developing strong communication skills, including assertiveness, can be instrumental in advocating for oneself and expressing career goals and aspirations. Assertive communication involves confidently articulating one’s achievements, skills, and ambitions, as well as setting boundaries when necessary. However there has been research that suggests that women of color fall foul of a negative stereotype of the “Angry Black Woman” so there is a difficult and unfair line to tow as that is not applied to others. #SoftBlackGirl offers solid advice regarding celebrating and communicating wins regularly.

Actively seeking visibility within the organization by volunteering for high-impact projects, participating in cross-functional teams, and contributing thought leadership can increase recognition and demonstrate leadership potential. Advocating for oneself is crucial in ensuring that achievements and contributions are recognized and rewarded. Black female professionals should feel empowered to speak up about their accomplishments, express career aspirations, and negotiate for advancement opportunities.

Corporate organizations play a pivotal role in creating an inclusive environment where Black female professionals can thrive. To support their success, companies should implement the following initiatives:

Diversity and Inclusion Programs: Establishing robust diversity and inclusion programs that prioritize representation, equity, and belonging can foster an environment where Black female professionals feel valued and supported. These programs should include initiatives such as mentorship programs and leadership development opportunities. These programs have to be useful by design and will not be unless they are supported from the top with an integral place in the talent strategy. These programs need to be structural not superficial. Unconscious bias training has become in mode – and the research is mixed on it- some say that awareness of bias reduces bias but studies show perspective taking is more effective and lasting.

Accessibility and Transparency: Companies should ensure that advancement opportunities are accessible to all employees based on merit and potential, regardless of race or gender. Implementing transparent promotion processes and addressing biases in decision-making can help mitigate disparities in career advancement.

Mentorship and Sponsorship Programs: Creating formal mentorship and sponsorship programs that pair Black female professionals with senior leaders who can provide guidance, advocacy, and career support is essential. These programs should focus on fostering meaningful relationships and providing opportunities for skill development and visibility.

Leadership Accountability: Holding leaders and managers accountable for promoting diversity and inclusion within their teams and advocating for the advancement of Black female professionals is crucial. Leadership accountability can be demonstrated through setting diversity goals, measuring progress, and fostering a culture of inclusivity. You would think it would go without saying that companies must actively address bias and discrimination in the workplace by implementing policies and practices that promote fairness and equity. This includes addressing microaggressions, providing diversity training, and creating channels for reporting and addressing discriminatory behavior.

The journey for Black female professionals to advance in their careers is multifaceted and requires both individual resilience and organizational support. By employing strategic career advancement strategies and advocating for systemic change within companies, Black female professionals can overcome barriers and achieve success. It is imperative for corporate organizations to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to create a more inclusive and equitable workplace where all employees, including Black women, can thrive and reach their full potential.

Diversity work requires organizational development, leadership, and commitment from everyone. Gatherings in employee resource groups, big ticket speakers and requested assimilation to the model of work, which was built postwar for white men, just isn’t the answer.

Evolved Employer, the organizational development consulting arm of theglasshammer works with companies to ensure companies understand systemically the work that creates a more level playing ground for all to thrive- true talent meritocracy.

By Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of TheGlasshammer.com

February 14, 2024/by Aimee

Vanessa McMichael: Head of Corporate & Public Entity (CPE) Strategy, Wells Fargo

Black History Month, Movers and Shakers, People

“I have a lot of passion for what I’m doing,” relates Vanessa McMichael, Head of Corporate & Public Entity (CPE) Strategy at Wells Fargo. “I want to make the most of each day that is in front of me.”

McMichael shares her insights on finding her niche in the financial industry, using her voice to elevate and empower others, and being a single mother while working towards her career goals.

Putting in the Work

Speaking to what she has learned so far in her career, McMichael maintains, “you have to put in the work. There’s no substitute for it. Any leader that you speak with has put in the work and is still putting in the work. It’s something that I harp on a lot, because it is necessary. It certainly has gotten me to where I am today.”

McMichael is the first person in her family to go to a traditional four-year college, and she recognizes her parents as giving her the grit and work ethic to succeed. Her father, an African American nuclear engineer and small business owner, emphasized to McMichael throughout her childhood, “Vanessa, you have to work hard. You’re going to have to work harder than other people.” It was an important life lesson that aided his own success, and one that he passed on to her.

Giving birth to Vanessa in high school, her mother did not get the chance to graduate and subsequently worked in factories her entire life. When her parents split up when she was young, she witnessed her mother work hard to rebuild her life, demonstrating to McMichael that, “if you want it, you have to go get it. No one else is going to just hand you what it is you think you need.” And, even more importantly, she saw firsthand how women can do it all.

Moreover, Vanessa is a childhood cancer survivor, and this is one of the central reasons why she strives to seize each day. This is also a reason why she has to be mindful about taking on too much, “because it’s easy to do when you’re trying to make the most of every day.” And although her parents taught her how to work hard through leading by example, her experience with cancer was a significant contributor to her drive and work ethic. She highlights that going through an experience like that suddenly, with no prior family history, and as a child, “changes your perspective and stays with you.”

McMichael took these experiences to heart, and it gave her the drive to reach goals she set for herself. After studying Japanese in high school, she attended Howard University’s business school. Initially, she wanted to move to Japan and create commercials, and she thought business school was a good starting point. But instead, she discovered her path to the banking/financial services industry after listening to a presentation by Wachovia on campus. She remembers being struck by the diverse representation of people at the presentation and compelled by the work they described.

After graduating and working for Wachovia for a few years, she then went on to get an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country, the University of Chicago Booth Business School. Following her MBA, she joined a rotational program at Wells Fargo on the trading floor where she had the opportunity to explore different areas of the business. It was during that program that she “stumbled” into the strategy group, an area she has been working in ever since.

Finding Her Niche

Working in the strategy group at Wells Fargo for over a decade, McMichael points to the value of finding your niche and a role that is a “good” fit. In particular, she highlights the variety of work she does day-to-day and the relationships that she has made as what keeps her role fresh and interesting.

“With our clients, who are corporations and public entities, my job is to equip them with what they need to make informed fixed income decisions. So, with that, my day-to-day is always different. I can talk to five retailers in one day, all in the same industry, but the conversations are varied.”

Vanessa added that although each client situation is unique, there has been a shift in the broader conversation with clients this year as the rate environment falls. “We are no longer in an environment where organizations can sit back and earn interest on excess cash so easily.”

Harkening back to her high school dream of creating commercials in Japan, she recognizes that her career at Wells Fargo is maybe not so far off from where she thought she would start: “I’m not creating commercials, but I am creating stories. I’m telling the story of what’s happening in fixed income markets and how the narrative can impact my clients.”

Another element of her job that she enjoys is having the opportunity to speak at conferences that corporate and public entity clients attend. She adds, “That’s probably what I enjoy the most about my job, is getting on stage. I’ve even told folks that I’m probably more comfortable getting on the stage in front of a lot of people than having a one-on-one.”

McMichael recently had the opportunity to speak to a much larger audience when she was interviewed on Bloomberg TV, addressing money market funds and the outlook for 2024. As this was her first live TV experience, she was initially nervous about being on camera, but then she found her rhythm, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Mentorship and Sponsorship

McMichael recognizes mentorship and sponsorship as contributing factors to getting her to where she is today, particularly as they not only helped her learn the “rules of the road,” but also “what I need to know” to succeed.

“I’ve had to build mentorship relationships to learn the rules of the road on the trading floor because the rules are not apparent all the time.” She adds that it is important to have both mentors and sponsors because, “sponsors are the folks who are telling me what I need to know and helping me take action to obtain it. I’m sharing projects that I’m working on or what I’m thinking, and they will say, okay, ‘you’re thinking this, you should go meet this person.’ That’s part of the role of a sponsor and the other part is speaking on your behalf when you’re not in the room.”

Using Her Voice

Reflecting on being a woman of color in the financial industry, McMichael believes that she is in control of how she is perceived, so it is important to use her voice to that effect.

“Going into situations, I’m very aware of who I am. I am a woman. I look different. I don’t think people automatically assume that I’m Black because I am mixed. So, I have a voice, and I use it. Instead of shying away or being self-conscious, I use it as an advantage. I want to be a good representative of women, of women of color, and of diverse women. We all have a voice, and we have to advocate for ourselves.”

McMichael takes action and uses her voice by supporting other women through the WomenGoFar network in Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking division. While on the committee she created a speed networking event where women had the chance to meet five to ten new people within an hour. It was an impactful way for junior women to get a chance to meet women leaders, who might not otherwise have the time to commit to a longer networking activity during work hours. And likewise, the senior leaders appreciated interacting and hearing from junior women across business lines.

Taking her support for women in the workplace a step further, McMichael recently coordinated a wellness workshop on stress and the impact it can have on the body, particularly as women are often juggling many different demands on their time and energy. This topic is especially important to her given her health history. McMichael is thrilled this initial idea has developed into a Wellness Series and is looking forward to creating additional content to further promote the well-being of women.

In addition to taking action to elevate women, McMichael has a network of African American colleagues that she engages with regularly, whether through sharing job opportunities or articles of interest to keep the dialogue going. “We have Employee Resource Networks for diverse teammates, but this is a grassroots way that I’m trying to engage and educate particularly around internal mobility for our diverse talent.”

These projects demonstrate the value of creating a space for connection that supports the advancement and inclusion of a diverse workforce.

Being a Single Parent and Succeeding in a Career in Finance

Connecting with colleagues who can understand her experience was also an important part of McMichael’s journey, as there was a time that she balanced being a single mother and developing her career. McMichael remembers when she first became a mother, she met senior women around her with stay-at-home husbands, and so her confidence wavered as to whether she would be able to advance in her career without one. She worried that she would be “stuck,” because she did not have the same kind of support. But she met other single parents at Wells Fargo who could relate from a lifestyle perspective.

“That connection with people opened this new life for me. One where I went from feeling isolated and stuck to one where I felt empowered and supported.” She continues, “If I could speak to younger Vanessa, I would tell her not to feel that you can’t be successful in this business, because you’re a single parent.”

McMichael expresses her joy in motherhood and the exciting prospect of sharing her interests with her now older daughter. Recently, McMichael introduced her daughter to salsa dance, a passion she held before becoming a mom. They also enjoy traveling and exploring together. As she looks ahead, McMichael is energized to continue growing and challenging herself at work, while keeping up with her daughter and husband and their busy life at home.

By Jessica Robaire

February 6, 2024/by Aimee

Avis Yates Rivers: CEO at Technology Concepts Group Int’l., LLC

Black History Month, People, Voices of Experience

“Young black girls want to see themselves in the roles to which they aspire. If they can’t see themselves, they’re not going to think they can be it. It’s been a challenge we see over and over again in the tech industry,” says Avis Yates Rivers. “How many prominent women or women of color can you name in the tech industry? Everyone can rattle off Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc. Can anyone name any women? Any black women?”

As a Black woman tech founder and CEO powerhouse, Rivers is coming at inclusion in tech with everything she is made of – from authorship to launching an organization for girls and young women in STEM to personal visibility: “As an entrepreneur, you see a problem and you figure out how to be the solution and bring positive results to that problem. So, I’m addressing the problem of the underrepresentation of black women in technology as an entrepreneur would.”

Being a Serial Entrepreneur She-EO

On the business front, Rivers founded her first firm after five years of selling early technology on Wall Street in 1985. After five short years at Exxon Office Systems, she had mastered sales and the ability to ‘manage her business’ as she ascended the ranks at Exxon. After a divestiture of that subsidiary, she decided to continue to support those customers by launching her first company out of her basement. When we talk tech, Rivers was selling the first full screen word processor and first generation of fax machines before PCs were ever in offices or homes.

“Exxon taught me how to sell and that held me in the highest good through my career, because to be successful in business, you have to know how to sell,” says Rivers. “It’s an art – the art of relationship building – and that’s key for being successful in any walk of life. You have to build strong relationships – whether mentors, sponsors, advocates, advisory board members or employees who can embrace your vision.”

Proclaiming herself a “serial entrepreneur” and with a sign reading She-EO propped behind her on Zoom, Avis has founded five tech companies since 1985, Technology Concept Group International (TCGi) and its predecessors, as well as acquired two. What animates Rivers in her business is being able to bring a tremendous amount of awareness, size and value to customers who are looking to transform their procurement practices. TCGi has three pillars of business: procurement solutions, technology solutions and talent management solutions.

“I love to help corporations rethink/reimagine how they spend their money,” says Rivers. “When we take a look at how they’re currently spending, there’s so much opportunity for improvement, for streamlining, for more accurate data capture and for more digital transformation.”

Necessary Inclusion Of Black Women In Technology

“It’s so key that I take an active role in correcting the underrepresentation of black women, specifically and intentionally, in tech,” says Rivers. “I advocate for all women in tech but the numbers for black girls and women continues at the same weak pace and has not grown to my satisfaction.”

In 2017, Rivers published her book Necessary Inclusion: Embracing the Changing Faces of Technology, and since then has been speaking on a global stage: “I wanted to broaden the conversation around what technologists can and should look like, which is anybody and everybody. And not just the image that is portrayed over and over again, in media, film, and entertainment. And to ask what are some of the things that we all can do to support more women in technology?”

She’s also taking a direct role in developing the next generation of diverse tech talent. Her company launched the TCGi Foundation, which is focused on breaking down barriers and creating opportunities for black girls and women in tech through efforts including exposure to hands-on experience, networking help, mentoring and college scholarships: “We help them to stay connected and persist even when it gets hard in college and to help them move into tech careers. TCGi directly hires some interns upon graduation. So, the Foundation is really fulfilling for me. That’s my purpose and passion work.”

To truly diversify the next generation of tech talent, Rivers knows encouragement from an early stage is critical. She was recently thrilled to see her five and three year old grandchildren playing with a coding kit for kindergartners with both black inclusive imagery and messaging. Rivers stresses that if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. It is difficult and being prepared, tech educated and well positioned for internships and career opportunities is essential.

“Being able to encourage, guide and support black girls to realize from a very young age that they are good enough, smart enough and this is something they can do matters entirely. They need to be able to see themselves,” emphasizes Rivers. “If I could do but one thing, it would be this: gathering with them, speaking to them, showing the way and mentoring more girls and young black women into tech. My voice needs to be heard, but my face also needs to be seen.”

Owning Your Ground and ‘Black Girl Magic’

“When I introduce myself, I often say that I’ve been born doubly blessed – black and female,” says Rivers. “I know my early success in selling technology had a lot to do with the fact that I was not a common sight on Wall Street. Then once you opened the door (provided the access), I could do the rest,” she notes. “But I also had to basically ‘steel’ myself physically and emotionally. I was encouraged to knock on every door in my territory and eventually earned the honor of being named Rookie of the Year. It was sheer persistence (and a healthy dose of encouragement from family) that I was able to persevere. I never know how I would be perceived and/or welcomed during those early days. I knew I was being judged before I even opened my mouth. We all are, just based on how we look. But it encouraged me that I had a distinction that set me apart from the white guys on either side of me, and I leveraged that as a benefit.”

Since George Floyd and the salience and acceleration of social justice issues, Rivers feels that black businesses are being recognized more and should own the moment. “So many corporations have stood up and made public commitments that they’re going to spend billions of dollars with black firms. I was like, okay, so we’re in vogue now,” she says. “So, it’s important for people like me to help them fulfill those commitments. It’s a change that has to be encouraged, enabled and managed.’”

She continues: “The longer I’m out here (over 3 decades now), the more unapologetic and forthright I’ve become. I continue to ask for what I want and what I believe I deserve, because I’ve worked hard and have earned the right.”

Rivers also talks frequently about ‘black girl magic’: “The notion of ‘black girl magic’ picks up on this je ne sais quoi, this essence, this flava, this presence, this power that is just now starting to be appreciated and recognized.”

“The reason behind the momentum is because there are more black women ascending into positions of power. We have a handful of black female CEOs, a black Vice President of the United States, and some black female billionaires now. It’s not just Oprah anymore in media and entertainment. The numbers are starting to swell, though still not where they should be,” she notes. “But because we’re extraordinary in those spaces, people take note to see how we show up and speak up. That’s why I feel committed to using my voice and my ‘black girl magic’ on behalf of those who do not have a voice.”

That same commitment goes for voice and her presence: “At this point in my career, I’m just very dogmatic about making sure that we’re treated with respect and included. If someone sends me an invite to a webinar, and I look at the speaker line-up, and I don’t see any black women or men, I immediately let them know that you really don’t want me there. Because there’s no representation. The more voices that insist that representation happens on every level, the faster we’ll get to any kind of equity.”

You Make the Choice to Belong

One of the best pieces of advice Rivers received early on was: you act like you belong. You walk in the room, and you act like you belong.

“I have walked into several rooms where I wasn’t invited, but I acted like I belonged. Then what are they going to do except welcome me?” she says, having even pulled it off at a presidential inaugural ball by bringing an extra guest with her invitation. “You walk into a room, and you act like you belong. Take a seat at the table. Not in a chair along the wall, but at the table. And then raise your voice when you speak so you can be heard.”

She also says it’s important to challenge the people who talk over you, the ‘alpha males’ who speak over other men and women or take credit for others’ ideas: “We have to use our voices to make sure those lines don’t get crossed.”

For her own success, she’s found it critical to be prepared. “You can’t fake it until you make it, especially at the level I’ve reached. I have to come to the table prepared.”

More on Her Back Story: Are Entrepreneurs Made or Born?

“Are entrepreneurs made or born?” Rivers asks, frequently. “The answer is yes: they are both. There is something inside of a true entrepreneur that isn’t easily fulfilled, no matter what role ‘they’ continue to accelerate you into.”

She reflects back to her own leap: “I was on a fast track at Exxon and being promoted every 12-18 months and loved when they moved me into sales. But a voice inside wouldn’t let me rest. I kept quieting that voice down because I’m from very humble beginnings; silver spoons didn’t exist in our house. I’m one of six kids born to two working-class parents growing up in New York City on public transportation and in public school. Although I worked on Wall Street, I wasn’t connected with capital markets,” she says. “So Exxon did me the biggest favor by selling that division out from underneath me. I had only worked for Exxon, including three internships in college, and never anticipated working anywhere else. But when they sold that division, I knew it was my time to take a leap of faith.”

Rivers already had a proven record on Wall Street and knew a fallback was finding another sales job. So, after writing the pros and cons, and excited for the opportunity to manager her clients, schedules and revenue in her own way, she set off on her own – and she brought along the same client install base she’d established from the five years in tech sales for Exxon, because she asked for it.

“It’s confirmation of the old adage: you don’t have because you don’t ask.”

Entrepreneurial Resilience As a Black Woman

From 9/11 to the greatest economic recessions to civil unrest and extreme weather, Rivers has had to face many headwinds and find her way forward.

“It seems like all of my resilience has come from sinking into financial holes and having to climb back out,” tells Rivers. “I was involved in the greatest U.S. corporate bankruptcy of all time (her largest customer filed for bankruptcy protection and she carried them on her own back to complete the project). I climbed back out. I had to deal with the greatest economic recession of all time in 2008. I climbed back out. I had to do it with the terrorist attack on 9/11. I lost 35% of my business that day – no notice, no fault of my own. I climbed back out. Through all of it, I’ve had to keep going, because to me, stopping was not an option.”

The lack of capital going to women and black women-owned businesses puts founders like herself into a financial roulette and great personal risk.

“Companies like mine are undercapitalized, which means we are able to make money and then spend the money that we make, but nobody’s handing us millions of dollars to fuel our growth. During the .com boom, folks that didn’t look like me were getting millions for an idea that they sketched out on a cocktail napkin – no company, no customers, no revenue, no track record,” she explains. “Folks like me who were not connected to that activity had to do the best we could. A lot of times that required going into the hole, suffering a loss, having to let people go, or getting behind on vendor invoice payments, etc. So, it’s been a journey. But resilience? I’ve modeled that in stone.”

Get Support And Know Your Numbers

If Rivers could redo anything differently, she’d say, “Don’t keep going it alone. I’ve been a sole owner my whole life. I would tell myself to find a good partner with complementary skillsets so that you can go farther faster. What is the old adage? If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go with somebody else.”

Had she known then what she knows now, Rivers would have been in the capital markets game. Her biggest growth curve has been her skillset around the finances, which happened after a trust rupture where she lost a lot: “That taught me a valuable lesson – to know my numbers and learn them for myself. I don’t have to be in the nitty-gritty of them, but also nobody has the authority to move money out of the company except me. Now, I have to approve it.”

Going further, she says: “I would say the financial aspect of running and growing a business has caused me to grow. Working with capital markets has caused me to grow. Understanding how the business is valued and what are the different components of the financial statements has really caused me to grow, so, now I have those conversations with private equity people.”

Slowing Down, Some Day…

While God and family are foremost in her life, Rivers knows that feeling good in her body matters to showing up strong: “When I think about the things that I need to do and be to bring my best self to every situation, I have to be physically fit.”

Moving to South Carolina after being a hardcore New Yorker, has enabled her to be in the water and on the golf course year-round while working very full weeks. She’s taken up synchronized swimming recently and performs in a 3-day show every February. She also loves to cook for her and her husband, and baking has become a new hobby. She bakes hundreds of cookies every holiday season for neighbors, friends and family. She says she does want to slow down, but soonish.

“I believe in living life to the fullest. There is no way I’m going to have any regrets when it’s my time to close my eyes for the final time. I will leave it all out here,” she muses. “When I look at all that I do in a given day or week, I recognize that it’s probably in the 95th percentile of what most people do every day or week. But I guess that’s just the New Yorker in me. I wake up every morning, give thanks, and press the ‘Go’ button on a fulfilled life.”

By Aimee Hansen

February 21, 2023/by Aimee

Op-ed: How to succeed as a #softblackgirl in Corporate America

Black History Month, Career Advice, Op-Ed

#softblackgirl – It has been said over the years anecdotally that as a Black person in white America, you’ve got to work twice as hard to get half as far. I feel like this has resonated with me for my entire life, and this reality served as a fire for my work ethic. I spent over 20 years leading teams at Fortune 500 companies and startups in Silicon Valley. I worked nights and weekends attempting to make a crack in the “concrete ceiling.” Many are familiar with the term the “glass ceiling,” referring to barriers for women to advance in their careers. We all know that glass eventually can be broken. However, I believe for Black women, our ceiling is a much tougher one to even crack. There have only been four Black women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in our entire history! And there are only two that are active today.

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corporation (2009–2017)
Mary Winston, CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond (May–November 2019)
Roz Brewer, CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance
Thasunda Brown Duckett, CEO of TIAA

According to Lean In’s The State of Black Women in Corporate America, for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 58 Black women are promoted, despite the fact that Black women ask for promotions at the same rate as men.

With the obstacles stacked against us at work, and the “invisible labor” that we undertake at home, self-care tends to go out the window as we prioritize our jobs and our families. How can Black women possibly embrace this movement towards a soft life and still do well in the workplace?

5 Steps to Succeed as a #SoftBlackGirl in Corporate America

1. Set Boundaries

Boundaries can come in different forms. Perhaps it’s the hours you are available for work. For example, you might set a strict boundary that you are unavailable after 6pm and will not respond to work messages over the weekend. Maybe it’s the frequency of travel that is sustainable for you and your family. Maybe it’s about your preferred communication channels, and you do not want coworkers texting your personal phone. Regardless of what your boundaries are, be sure to communicate them to your colleagues so that they are aware and can make conscious choices around whether to abide by them.

When you are asked to do things that cross your boundaries, I invite you to pause and ask yourself, do I want to do this? Do I have the space to do this? What will the impact be on me and on others if I do this? Listen to your gut. And, if the answer is “No,” communicate just that. Practicing saying “No” in the mirror can be a very powerful exercise to build up your confidence for the real thing.

What is one boundary that you can set right now that prioritizes self-care?

2. Prioritize & Do Less

 We often feel like we have to do everything, and that can be extremely overwhelming. The key to both success and self-care in the workplace is to do what matters to the people that matter. Identify who matters in the organization and what they care about. Excel on those projects, and don’t sweat the small stuff! You will get a bigger bang for your buck in terms of your personal brand image at work, and you’ll have more time for you.

One tool that is extremely helpful in prioritizing is the Eisenhower Matrix. In a 2×2 matrix you categorize tasks into urgent vs. not urgent, and important vs. not important. Based on where something falls in the matrix, you can decide whether to do it now, schedule it for later, delegate, or delete it from your list. My favorite of the categories is when you realize that something is both not urgent and not important, and there is something so satisfying about being able to delete it. This is self-care. This is embracing the soft Black girl life!

What tasks on your to-do list are both not urgent and not important?

3. Celebrate Wins Weekly

I often feel like I’m not doing enough. This leads to a spiral of negative thoughts around my competence, value and self-worth. However research shows that when people are reminded of their best work before undertaking a challenging project, they have more creativity and less stress. Taking the time to acknowledge all the amazing things you have achieved can be a powerful confidence boost and do wonders for your productivity. Every week, (Fridays are great), write down what you can celebrate this week. Small steps of progress count, even if it’s just sending an email that was hard to write!

Once you have recognized all the great wins of the week, it’s important to also take the time to celebrate! I invite you to “Treat Yo’ Self!” This doesn’t necessarily mean to go on a shopping spree, though if that’s what you feel like, then by all means! Think about what brings you joy. Maybe it’s a pedicure. Maybe it’s a luxurious bubble bath with some candles and bath bombs. Maybe it’s a piece of your favorite chocolate.

What is one thing you can celebrate this week? How can you treat yourself?

4. Communicate Your Wins

It’s important that you get the recognition that you deserve, so don’t be shy about communicating your wins both to people more senior in the organization and to those on other teams. In response to “How are you?” at the water cooler, be sure to casually mention your wins. “I’m doing great! I just led this project with {insert success metrics}” or, ”We are very close to launching XYZ!” Consider being the one to send celebration emails when your team has a win. If they come from you, people will associate that win with you!

What is one win that you can communicate to your colleagues?

5. Schedule Self-Care Breaks

If you don’t put it on the calendar, it most likely won’t happen. So schedule time for self-care in your day. This can be something as short as a 5 minute reset break where you are intentional about doing a rejuvenation practice such as box breathing. If breathing isn’t your thing, you could set a timer for two minutes and massage your temples. It’s an amazing stress reliever. If you have more time, maybe you go for a walk outside if the weather is nice, or do a 20 minute sound bath to relax. Consider taking lunch breaks away from your computer. These very simple acts can completely change your day, your mood, and your ability to do your best work! When the calendar reminder comes up, and you are tempted to finish up “just that one little thing,” remind yourself of this mantra:

“Today I choose me!”

Bio: Zee Clarke, a Harvard MBA, breathwork expert, and author of Black People Breathe (March 14, 2023 / Penguin Random House). After experiencing a number of race related challenges, from racial profiling and harassment by the police to microaggressions in the workplace, she realized that mindfulness and breathwork were much more powerful outside of the yoga studio and in the context of our everyday lives. Trained in India, Zee leverages her toolkit of yoga, meditation, breathwork, sound healing, and Reiki, to ensure that all people of color have the tools to thrive despite any challenges that race, gender, or sexuality might present.

February 2, 2023/by Aimee

Spotlight on Change: Black History Month

Black History Month, Guest Contribution

February is Black History Month—a dedicated time to, in part, shine light on all the challenges people of color have faced historically and continue to face in a modern context. In today’s social setting, Black women still face several unique challenges in life and in business. In fact, statistics paint a realistic picture of just how many challenges Black women confront to achieve professional success, especially as business owners.

There are more than two million Black-owned businesses in the United States, but women own only 35% of these. In addition, businesses owned by Black women earn significantly less income than businesses owned by other women.
Less than four percent of all startups are founded by Black women. Although this figure doubled between 2016 and 2018, it is still far below other groups.
Businesses founded by Black owners receive less than one percent of the total venture capital invested in this country, and only a small portion of that amount goes to companies led by Black women.

Despite the myriad of challenges women of color have faced, however, many have overcome them to achieve tremendous success and have inspired new generations of Black women to pursue their dreams.

Among the ranks of highly successful Black women at the helm of prosperous companies is Zandra Cunningham, who founded Zandra Beauty when she was just 10 years old. Now her products are found at major retail chains, including Target.

Farissa Knox is the CEO of RLM, a leading full-service integrated marketing and communications advertising agency. On the first day of Black History Month 2022, RLM announced its new social impact program called the RLM Reading Nook Initiative.

This initiative includes a five-year commitment to help women and girls in their local communities across the US and even abroad. To accomplish this goal, RLM is partnering with organizations that prioritize reading and are committed to ensuring all future female leaders have full access to books and education.

These collective efforts are purposeful about empowering girls with the freedom that comes through literacy and educational insights often required for professional success. Throughout the coming five years, RLM intends to raise and/or donate $500,000 in literacy education and hard materials to girls around the world.

Knox believes the Reading Nook Initiative is vital in the quest to help young Black women achieve success. “Women and girls across the globe are still being told by lawmakers and family members and everyone else in between what they can and cannot do, or what’s right or wrong for them,” she says. “I am an activist for women’s freedom, and I believe the number one way to freedom is through education. The more we know, the more we take power into our own hands and make decisions for our own lives. I want that for all women, and especially for Black women.”

To accomplish this purpose, Knox believes it is important for successful Black women to tap into their power and add value to the world for the following three reasons:

1. To change the minds of those who might have a deficit-based view about Black people and/or Black women and their ability to thrive in the world. There is still a lot of latent racism and sexism in modern society, and we have seen that ugliness more prominently in recent years. However, there are far more unexpressed—and sometimes even unacknowledged—biases that significantly impact the ability of minority groups to achieve success.

These hidden biases and stereotypes present formidable barriers. One such barrier has been Black business owners’ longstanding lack of access to venture capital. Even when the data says otherwise, stereotypes persist about the ability of Black business owners to successfully lead their companies as well as about the credit-worthiness of individuals. The only way to change these perceptions is to refute the narrative head-on—a necessity that underscores the importance of developing highly visible initiatives that demonstrate the competence, intelligence, and leadership abilities of women, particularly Black women.

2. So that young girls and children of color can see live examples of great leadership working in their communities, and they can be inspired to do something great too. Representation matters. If you don’t think it does, consider this: If you ask any American to name a few successful business owners or leaders, most could name at least five without giving it a second thought—but if you look at their list, you will most likely see names such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Cuban. If you specifically ask them to name a female leader or business owner, they might come up with one or two names at best. But most people in this country would not be able to list a single successful Black woman-owned company or CEO without doing some research.

Perhaps more significantly, most people wouldn’t give this fact a second thought. However, this lack of representation in the upper rungs of company leadership is a fact that Black women and girls live with every day. They don’t see the potential for success every day, but they do see the barriers to achieving that success every day. Those barriers are a substantial and unavoidable part of their lives—and that is why it is so important for successful Black women to be highly visible.

3. To ensure that we share our wealth, resources, and prosperity within the Black community and strive to change the narrative so our youth know they can avoid becoming a statistic. Once again, succeeding in this effort boils down to fostering hope and vision.

As a society, we need to start focusing on the many positive developments happening among Black youth in our country. They are capable of great things, but in many instances, they are discouraged from even trying because the statistics are not in their favor. When successful Black leaders can use their resources to help tip the scales to a more equitable environment for Black youth, it leads to new opportunities and tremendous growth for these young people, both in the near and long-term future.

That’s why the Reading Nook Initiative with RLM is so important. It provides an avenue through which to help young Black girls empower themselves with knowledge and to recognize their potential to achieve any dream they might hold in their chosen profession. When these young leaders can envision a successful future, then the sky’s the limit on what they can accomplish.

By Rikki Roehrich

(Guest contributed articles do not necessarily reflect the views of theglasshammer.com).

February 24, 2022/by Aimee

Black History Month 2022: Why bell hooks was right

Black History Month, Featured, News

Before the word ‘intersectionality’ was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, bell hooks critiqued a narrowed feminism that hailed from the white middle class living room and neither addressed interlocking webs of oppression nor recognized its own race and class privileges – therefore, blindly disregarding the multidimensional plights of non-white, underprivileged women.

Her message has become undeniably resonant over the last two years – and not the least of all, her argument that humanity would need to brave the revolutionary path of deep self awareness and self actualization, as she taught, “once you learn to look at yourself critically, you look at everything around you with new eyes”.

A Revolutionary Feminism For Everyone

With her death on December 15th of last year, bell hooks, born as Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, left behind a legacy, as well as over 40 books in 15 different languages, of challenging and championing feminism.

In her book Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism, she grounded her feminist approach in the struggles of black women. In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, she proposed a revolutionary feminism: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”

Further, hooks wrote, “The foundation of a future feminist struggle must be solidly based on a recognition of the need to eradicate the underlying cultural basis and causes of sexism and other forms of group oppression. Without challenging and changing these philosophical structures, no feminist reforms will have a long-range impact.” Black feminist writer Barbara Smith wrote that anything less than a feminism that freed all women was “not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement”.

hooks also advocated that feminism was not men versus women, but all versus sexism, a conditioning both present in and oppressive to everyone. She wrote: “And that clarity helps us remember that all of us, female and male, have been socialized from birth on to accept sexist thought and action,” later continuing, “To end patriarchy (another way of naming the institutionalized sexism) we need to be clear that we are all participants in perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and hearts, until we let go of sexist thought and action and replace it with feminist thought and action.”

Emphasizing that oppression costs too much to everyone, including to those who overtly benefit from it, she called for ending sexism, racism, class elitism, and imperialism through not reform, but a revolution of self-actualization. She asserted any real movement of social justice to be based in the ethic of love, writing in her work Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, “The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.”

And yet with her departure, we still stand in our half-awoken adolescence of realizing the necessity of self-development she spent her life advocating for.

A Workplace That Is Still Damagingly Exclusive

According to authors in Harvard Business Review, women of color are still culturally encouraged to be grateful for what they have, discouraged when declining undervalued work or seeking greater power and resources, and often fear backlash. Meanwhile, the angry black woman stereotype “not only characterizes Black women as more hostile, aggressive, overbearing, illogical, ill-tempered and bitter, but it may also be holding them back from realizing their full potential in the workplace — and shaping their work experiences overall.”

Whereas anger is a normal workplace emotion, when expressed by a black women particularly, it’s perceived (assumed) as a personality trait – rather than due to validating external circumstances, despite little substantiation for that perception. Meanwhile black women often find themselves stereotyped, kid-gloved or imposing tone policing on their own voices. Echoing hooks in regards to self-development, the researchers suggest an antidote to this is deeper self-reflection and empathy by those in the workforce.

Even well-intentioned leaders can put extra responsibilities and burdens on successful black women in the office. When black women are implicitly seen to speak as representative for a group, rather than for themselves, or when they are disproportionately committed to external opportunities as visible symbols of parading a company’s diversity, the pressure and time commitment can be overwhelming. Meanwhile, the stereotype of the strong black woman means managers are less likely to check in to see if they are doing okay with managing the workload. Couple that with it being societally instilled that black women will have to work twice as hard as others to succeed.

Not only this, but the perception gap creates a gaslighting of the workplace experience for black women – McKinsey notes that black employees are 23% less likely to see there is support to advance, 41% less likely to view the promotion process as fair and 39% less likely to feel the company’s DE&I program are effective, relative to white colleagues. Gallup found that black women are less likely to feel valued, treated fairly and respected in the workplace. Consistently, the experience of fairness and organizational commitment to addressing bias is lower for them, and they are also less likely to consider themselves as thriving.

When it comes to women of color and the multidimensional factors they face, the glass ceiling has been reframed as a concrete ceiling. Too often the corporate definition of leadership has proven to exclude women of color – with standards of what leadership looks still contingent upon traits most associated with white males.

If you question that, consider that a study has recently shown that black women are indeed penalized for natural hairstyles in an interview setting, as authors wrote: “Black women with natural hairstyles were perceived to be less professional, less competent, and less likely to be recommended for a job interview than Black women with straightened hairstyles and white women with either curly or straight hairstyles.”

The emotional tax black women are paying to be in workplaces rife with conscious and unconscious incidences of exclusion is not an abstract concept – it’s visible in functional MRI brain scans, which show that black women who have experienced more incidents of racism have greater response activity in the brain regions most associated with vigilance and anticipating incoming threats. This ultimately can have a trauma-like impact on health.

The researchers also state that “a disproportionately high amount of brain power may go into regulating, or inhibiting, their emotional responses to these situations” – which is consuming energy that could otherwise be put into well-being, thriving, creating and innovating.

Inclusion Does Rest Upon Collective Self-Development

So amidst the Great Resignation, black women are leaving the workforce in record numbers, with a track record of having outpaced all other women when it comes to daring the journey of entrepreneurship and achieving business growth within it.

With research indicating that “one of the fastest ways to accelerate change and effectively begin to address the racial wealth gap is to listen to and invest in Black women,” Goldman Sachs launched, in partnership with Black women-led organizations and others, the One Million Black Women initiative – committing $10 billion in investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic support to be focused on key moments, from early childhood to retirement, that offer the greatest possibility to narrow the opportunity gaps and positively impact lives.

Meanwhile, Gallup asserts that the exclusion experiences of black women in the workplace can be largely addressed by managers, as the crux of feeling engaged comes from coaching. Seeking to coach and sponsor those who are under-championed is where you begin – getting to know and support every person, in their individual strengths and challenges, is where engagement is created. Gallup suggests that to be inclusive, more workplaces need to train their managers to become coaches.

As summarized in the Journal of International Women’s Studies, hooks consistently advocated that only “the self-development of a people will shake up the cultural basis of group oppression.”

Haven’t the prominent themes of the last couple years – braving the difficult conversations, recognizing the unconscious biases in everyone, listening to the experiences of others, cultivating a personal growth mindset of being open to being wrong and learning – echoed the message of this visionary, who emphasized our interconnectedness and collective responsibility to expose the ideology of the status quo that exists in each of us?

As hooks wrote: “No level of individual self-actualization alone can sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to collective struggle, to communities of resistance that move us outward, into the world.”

By Aimee Hansen

February 10, 2022/by Aimee

Beyond Kamala Harris: Elevating More Black Women to Leadership

Black History Month

Now that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ election represented a milestone for women, black women and Asian-American women alike, let’s call for momentum.

Because if organizations are not focusing on elevating significantly more black women to leadership positions, they are likely failing to do so.

Black women face compounded discrimination in the workplace with intersecting gender and racial identities—so while among the fasting-growing entrepreneurs, at least pre-pandemic, black women still struggle to pierce corporate leadership’s glass ceiling.

For how much longer will a lack of diversity results continue to reflect corporate commitment to holding onto homogeneousness in leadership?

The Conversation Is Finally Happening, But It Can’t Stop There

Former Senator Kamala Harris, a black woman and woman of Asian descent, broke new ground as the first woman to become U.S. Vice President. Though highly visible for all in the spirit of “if you can see it, you can be it”, a real shift will be evidenced when she is not an exception, and black women are prominent in influential leadership.

While the sociocultural conversation of 2020 focused on Black Lives Matter, the C-Suite conversation is arriving to the reality that black leadership matters—inducing financial and reputation-based reverberations for companies that continue to fail to move diversity beyond lip-service to a quantifiable reality.

In a commitment to accelerate efforts towards racial justice and equality, McKinsey Academy launched the Black Leadership Academy, with a Management Accelerator program and a Black Executive Leadership Program, to support progression to both senior leadership and C-Suite roles.

Several companies—such as Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, Facebook, Apple, and Google—vowed to significantly increase investment in black leadership and diversity, as well as made tangible commitments to % increases in representation.

Black Women Face Specific Challenges at Work

When we only talk about “women leaders” or “black leaders”, we are missing the point that black women are often sidelined in either discussion—either white women or black men often become the feature players.

Lean In released a report called “The State of Black Women in Corporate America,” which details the challenges and obstacles that black women specifically face—these, in effect, include underrepresentation, lack of support and access, day-to-day discrimination and unrealized, discouraged ambition.

Underrepresented and Undermined

75% of black women identify as ambitious towards their career, while 40% seek to attain a management position within the next five years. But while 37 women lead Fortune 500 firms, none are black, and while 21% of C-Suite leaders are women, only 1% are black women.

Less than 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs are black, with a total of only 18 Black CEOS across the past two decades—Ursula Burns was the only woman among them.

Whereas black women make up 7.4% of the U.S. population, they hold only 1.6% of VP positions and 1.4% of C-Suite positions. White men, however, make up only 35% of the U.S. population and dominate 57% of VP positions and 68% of C-Suite positions.

For every 100 men hired into manager roles, only 64 black women are. Black women request promotions at the same rate as men, but for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 58 black women are.

“The culture of promotion can also exclude qualified black candidates,” writes Jeanne Sahadi, “who may not be part of the social networks that board members and CEOs often use to vet a candidate.”

Black women are both the most educated and the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., owning 21% of all women-owned businesses and with above average growth rate.

However, between 2009-2018, less than .0006% of venture capital went towards black women-led startups. And black women still earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by white men, compared to 82 cents on average for women.

Not only are black women underrepresented, but when they overcome obstacles to achieve success, their accomplishments are often attributed to external factors. This undermines recognizing black women for their talent, competency, hard work and hard-earned credit of their successes.

Less Support and Access to Leadership

Lean In points out that in a survey of U.S. law firm employees, “62% of women of color with some level of mentorship said the lack of an influential mentor was a barrier to their advancement; only 30% of white men said the same.”

Only 24% of black women say they have the sponsorship needed to advance their career, compared to 30% of women and 33% of men. Black women are less likely to feel their managers help navigate organizational politics, advocate for opportunities for them, or provide opportunities to showcase their work—with affinity bias likely playing a big role. Also, while 80% of white women and men see themselves as allies, less than half of black women feel they have strong allies behind them.

Meanwhile, employees with steady manager support are both more likely to be promoted and to believe they have the same opportunity to be promoted.

When it comes to leadership access, black women are least like to have a substantive interaction with a senior leader—41% never have, versus 27% for all men and 33% for all women. An even greater gap exists with casual interactions with a senior leader—59% never have, versus 40% for all men and 49% for all women.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that research has shown the attrition rate of black professionals in general is higher, with a third intending to leave their company within two years.

Emotional Tax of Daily Discrimination

Between the regular experience of microaggressions and often being the “only” black women in the room, black women pay a lot of emotional tax in the workplace.

“I learned at an early age to silence myself when it came to race, and it was at the expense of my own well-being,” says Minda Harts, CEO and founder of The Memo LLC, a career development company for women of color—as well as author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know To Secure a Seat at the Table, who now encourages women to speak about these inequalities.

Lean In reports that black women are more likely to have to provide more evidence of their competence (40%, versus 30% of all women). And while one in ten white women have the experience of someone expressing surprise about their language skills or abilities, one in four black women suffer this microaggression. Women who regularly experience microaggressions think about leaving their job three times as much.

54% of black women often experience being the “only” one of their racial gender identity in the room. Black women who have this “only” experience are more likely to feel closely watched than other women in that circumstance (41% vs. 23% of all women, 10% of white women), on guard (40% vs. 25% of all women, 15% of white women) and pressured to perform (49% vs. 32% of all women, 11% of white women).

Not only that, but black women who are the “only” one are way more likely to feel their personal actions reflect on others like them (50% vs. 30% of all women, 9% of white women), aware they are seen as representatives of their race and gender.

“You have an added burden to succeed,” testified Mary Winston, formerly interim CEO of Bed, Bath and Beyond. “If you don’t, you know there won’t be another one like you for many years to come.”

Unrealized, Discouraged Ambition

Black women are earning more degrees than any other group and are as likely as white men (more likely than white women) to be interested in top executive positions, with increased desire to positively influence company culture and be a role model.

This very willingness to lead can work against black women in a double bind of the communal expectations of women, so that they suffer an ambition penalty.

Over the last 40 years, only 13% of black women Harvard MBAs have reached the most senior executive ranks, whereas 40% of non-African-American Harvard MBAs have.

Black professionals of any gender who do reach the C-Suite are rarely given the roles with high advancement potential, such as profit-and-loss positions, and more likely to be placed in marketing, human resources and administration.

The other reality is that those in power are less likely to validate the issue: a Boston Consulting Group survey indicated that while 43% of black colleagues observed obstacles to advance for people of color in their workplace, only 19% of white men above 45 years felt those obstacles existed.

Organizational Action to Support Black Women To Leadership

The Lean In authors suggest three key actions for companies to address obstacles to leadership for black women—in effect, make the advancement of black women a priority, address bias in both hiring and promotions and create an inclusive workspace.

Make Supporting Black Women a Specific Objective

As black women represent both racial and gender diversity amidst the false construct of default white male leadership, they often fall through the gaps, so the commitment to advancing black women in particular must be intentional.

Supporting black women to advance requires specific and measurable targets— in the consideration pool, in hiring and in promotion, in succession and in retention, but also in mentorship and sponsorship.

The progress against these measures should be visible and diversity targets attached to accountability in performance reviews and financial reward.

Reducing Bias in Hiring and Promotions

Diversity needs to begin with having black women (not just one black woman) represented in the pool of candidacy, as research has shown that a woman, or a black woman, has zero statistical chance of being hired if alone in a pool of finalists.

Beyond insidious bias awareness is training and tools to mitigate that bias, objective checks throughout the process (eg anonymous resume review), and use of technologies that provide truth-telling data and remove levels of bias to level the playing field.

Inclusive Workplace

Finally, organizations need to intentionally cultivate more inclusive workplaces, that reduce the emotional tax for black women, while providing the same casual support and access others receive.

This includes real guidelines to inclusive culture as well as training on anti-racism and allyship beyond affinity bias. It also means reducing the “only” experience for black women so it’s no longer the norm, and addressing the casual and nuanced ways that black women still fail to be invited into network and leadership access.

The conversation of black leadership, and particularly black women leadership, is now glaringly open and on the table. The question is which organizations will carry the talk through to character and action, until our leadership actually fully embodies the results of that commitment.

By Aimee Hansen

February 18, 2021/by Aimee

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020

Black History Month, News

To celebrate and honor the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, we wanted to put out a call out for amazing female executives in financial and professional services who identify as African American or Black women (British or American or from another nation) to be profiled as part of Black History Month coming up as a celebration of heritage here in the USA in February.

If you are a black female professional or are a woman of color in financial services, tech, law or Fortune 1000 we want to hear from you. As a continuation of our thirteen year campaign to ensure that we create a platform and a place to honor everybody’s unique story and career journey, we invite you to tell yours to inspire others.

We profile all types of people all year long so it is really Black History Month is a heritage celebration and we are totally cognizant around how a person chooses to identify as opposed to identities that we put upon people.

Our aim is to dispel stereotypes and “You, according to you, versus you according to them” and the perceptual gap of who you are in actuality as opposed to who others believe you to be, is everything.

Happy MLK day- celebrate history, his legacy and beyond that, think about how your actions can contribute to progress, equality and equity among people.

Email Nicki@theglasshammer.com if you are interested in having your career profiled

January 20, 2020/by Nicki Gilmour

Tara Stafford: Project Manager, PGIM Operations & Innovation

Making a Positive Impact – Both Personally and Professionally

Finding Mentors and Sponsorship Outside of Your Comfort Zone

Being the Change She Wants to See in the World

Kimberly Bryant: Founder and CEO, Black Innovation Lab and Ascend Ventures Tech

Empowering Black Female Professionals: Navigating Career Advancement and Corporate Support

Despite these challenges, there are several strategies Black female professionals can employ to advance in their careers:

Corporate organizations play a pivotal role in creating an inclusive environment where Black female professionals can thrive. To support their success, companies should implement the following initiatives:

Vanessa McMichael: Head of Corporate & Public Entity (CPE) Strategy, Wells Fargo

Putting in the Work

Finding Her Niche

Mentorship and Sponsorship

Using Her Voice

Being a Single Parent and Succeeding in a Career in Finance

Avis Yates Rivers: CEO at Technology Concepts Group Int’l., LLC

Being a Serial Entrepreneur She-EO

Necessary Inclusion Of Black Women In Technology

Owning Your Ground and ‘Black Girl Magic’

You Make the Choice to Belong

More on Her Back Story: Are Entrepreneurs Made or Born?

Entrepreneurial Resilience As a Black Woman

Get Support And Know Your Numbers

Slowing Down, Some Day…

Op-ed: How to succeed as a #softblackgirl in Corporate America

5 Steps to Succeed as a #SoftBlackGirl in Corporate America

Spotlight on Change: Black History Month

Black History Month 2022: Why bell hooks was right

A Revolutionary Feminism For Everyone

A Workplace That Is Still Damagingly Exclusive

Inclusion Does Rest Upon Collective Self-Development

Beyond Kamala Harris: Elevating More Black Women to Leadership

The Conversation Is Finally Happening, But It Can’t Stop There

Black Women Face Specific Challenges at Work

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020

The Glass Hammer

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